Mr Liam Lawlor's first challenge to the authority of the Flood Tribunal may have been exploratory on his part; his second was downright deliberate. He got off lightly yesterday when Mr Justice Thomas Smyth in the High Court sentenced him to only seven days in Mountjoy Jail, from two o'clock next Wednesday, and a fine of £5,000 for failing to provide the Flood Tribunal with all of the records it sought from him. Mr Lawlor, the TD for Dublin West, is to spend a week in jail for the second time in six months and few will have any sympathy for him.
Something of a watershed in politics and the course of the tribunals was reached last January with Mr Lawlor's imprisonment for the first time. He was then ordered by Mr Justice Smyth to pay a £10,000 fine and serve seven days of 24 hours each out of a suspended sentence of three months for "blatant defiance" of High and Supreme Court orders requiring him to co-operate with the tribunal.
Mr Lawlor is not bound for a second spell in prison because he has been found guilty of corrupt behaviour. No such charge is proven. He was locked up the first time when it was found that his non-compliance with court orders was not unintentional. "That he did so as a citizen is a disgrace; that he did so as a public representative is a scandal", Mr Justice Smyth said last January. He credited Mr Lawlor with providing affidavits and 157 folders of documents - more quantity than quality - in the intervening period. But, he concluded yesterday: "the rot has got to stop".
When will the leaders of Fianna Fβil, Fine Gael, Labour, the Progressive Democrats, the Green Party and all others in the Dβil conclude likewise? Mr Lawlor's actions are feeding the current disillusionment with politics and the system can still do little to sanction him. Only for a statement from the Labour Party yesterday, there was a deafening silence from the Dβil.
The Dβil's Committee on Members' Interests published a new draft code of conduct last May. It would place a specific obligation on members to co-operate with all tribunals of inquiry and other bodies inquiring into matters of public importance established by the Houses of the Oireachtas. The Committee recommended that there should be a sanction of up to three months suspension without pay for breaches of the code. However, the Government has failed to bring the necessary motion before the Dβil to bring this code into effect.
Mr Justice Smyth's quotation from Balzac was curious yesterday: "Nothing causes deeper sadness than an unmerited fall into disrepute from which it is impossible to rise again". Mr Lawlor's attitude to the Flood Tribunal is curiouser. He was ordered to pay an estimated £200,000 in costs arising from the first contempt case and £100,000 yesterday. Why is he going to such personal and financial lengths to avoid full co-operation with the tribunal?